Congratulations on the birth of your twin girls /twin boys! It's double the giggles and double the grins and double the trouble if you're blessed with twins! Congrats on your double bundle of joy.
Recognizing a parent's face is one of the most important early skills babies learn. So when one of the parents has an identical twin, it's a recipe for confusion.
Compared with other mothers, women who deliver twins live longer, have more children than expected, bear babies at shorter intervals over a longer time, and are older at their last birth, according to a University of Utah study.
At three months:
The three-month stage marks the end of the “fourth trimester” and your twins can better adapt to life outside the womb. For one thing, they'll sleep in longer stretches of about three- to four-hour chunks.
In terms of happiness, a compelling argument for having an only child comes from science that strongly indicates that mothers with one child are happiest.
Measures included actigraphy, sleep diaries, and standardized instruments for fatigue, sleep quality, and depression. According to the results, by the time the twins reached full-term, mothers were sleeping an average of 5.4 hours in a 24-hour period, with over 70 percent reporting less than six hours of sleep.
It is likely that twins' awareness of one another starts sooner than seven or eight months of age. An article by the late doctor, T. Berry Brazelton, observed that at age three to four months, an infant identical female twin seemed disoriented when her sister was removed from the room.
However, for a given pregnancy, only the mother's genetics matter. Fraternal twins happen when two eggs are simultaneously fertilized instead of just one. A father's genes can't make a woman release two eggs.
Although it may seem as though twin babies and multiples do a lot more crying than singletons, especially when they're taking turns sobbing, there's no evidence that they spend more time wailing than other babies. Individually, each baby probably cries about the same amount as others.
Parents of single newborns have it tough, but parents of twins can have it even tougher. The time and workload of twin babies are greater, and you get even less sleep. You have fewer people around you who 'get' how hard twin newborns can be, so can feel less supported.
Ask questions to engage your twins in conversation. As they get older, use open-ended questions to spark discussion. Don't interrupt your child to make corrections while they're speaking. Rather, let them finish, then say the words correctly by repeating them back to them.
The reality is that raising multiples is hard. You have double or triple the feeding, diapering, and laundry and, as a result, less time to spend cuddling and getting to know each baby. To be sure, there will be days when you feel as if you're walking up a down escalator.
“Having twins is not twice as hard—it's exponentially more difficult,” says Natalie Diaz, author of What To Do When You're Having Two and CEO of Twiniversity, a global support network for parents of twins.
The reality is that although a good night's sleep is coming, it is safe to assume that your twins will be waking each other up during the night. And it's not just twins. Often two children of different ages who share a room will wake each other as they get used to sharing a room.
According to a study out of Australia's Edith Cowan University, parents with the most life satisfaction (which means those who are the happiest) are those that have four or more children.
As a result, parents find that their mental and physical health takes a big hit with two kids thanks to the effect of chronic stress. And that's especially true for women in cisgendered, straight relationships, where both partners tend to slot, unconsciously or otherwise, into traditional carer/earner roles.
"The survey finds that the majority of respondents believe that two children is the 'ideal' number for family happiness, but the majority of respondents also have two children.
This is called co-bedding and is perfectly safe. In fact, putting twins in the same cot can help them regulate their body temperatures and sleep cycles, and can soothe them and their twin.
Twins on the average seem to have lower IQs than singletons.
Twins and other multiple-birth individuals can suffer from much deeper and troubling loneliness than single-born individuals. Separation anxiety, which often begins at birth, is the underlying cause of loneliness for twins.